Now Magazine apologises for front cover suggesting Stacey Solomon 'boring, desperate and cheap'

Now Magazine has apologised to Stacey Solomon after running a front cover suggesting she is "boring, desperate and cheap".

The cover of the weekly magazine features two images of the Loose Women panellist with a subheading that reads: "Why fans are SICK of her."

Solomon, 28, took to Twitter to voice her anger, branding the story the "meanest thing I've ever seen".

After a public backlash, the magazine issued a statement saying: "The story featured in this week’s issue of Now magazine regarding Stacey Solomon was written on the basis of social media comments about Stacey and is not the opinion of Now magazine.

"As a publication, we simply aim to inspire debate amongst our readers about their favourite celebrities and TV stars, including Stacey. We do not encourage or condone bullying in any form. We apologise to Stacey for any distress our story may have caused."

The TV personality had earlier posted a longer note where she branded Now magazine's words as "bullying."

She said: "The saddest part of this publication is that inside of this magazine, it goes from telling girls to get a revenge body (because it must be their body that caused any upset in their lives & changing that is the only way to fix it) to Stacey's celebrating her natural body & we are bored of it.

"The best thing to come out of this... is that thousands of people disagree with this awful, bullying, insecure pushing journalism and won't stand for it."

Ms Solomon, who has been vocal in the past about the pressures of social media and regularly posts body positive pictures on Instagram, received more than 3,700 likes and 175 retweets from celebrities and fans who shared her anger.

In response to the scathing headline, former Pussycat Doll singer Ashley Roberts wrote: "Babe you’re one the brightest lights in a room. So kind and beautiful. Those people who write these kind of things are unhappy souls. Polar opposite of you!"

Singer Olly Murs also rushed to Ms Solomon's defence.

"Can’t believe they have used this as a headline! What a load of rubbish!" He wrote.

Fans also wrote messages of support to the star.

"Stats out about self harming girls today then you see this," one wrote.

"No celebration of anyone’s talents, parenting, business achievements, talents etc / just someone calling names and Beauty and bums. Women deserve SO much more."

"I’m sure that even though you are clearly a mature and grounded woman and mum, this nasty headline/ article had to have hurt as it was so personal and crudely phrased. Well done on having the courage to fight back," wrote another supporter.